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This article, 63 pages long, deals with the fear of death and the belief in a future life. The former subject is dealt with not so much as a phobia, strictly speaking, as a fear amongst normal people. Much
of the paper, relating rather to ethical and philosophical considerations, is not of direct psycho-analytical interest, though it would be in any case of value to us on account of the extensive material contained in it, both pedalogical and folkloristic.
Hall first points out how much the psychology of death has in common with that of love, especially from the new psychogenetic standpoint. 'There is a sense in which all fears and phobias are at bottom fears of death or of the abatement or arrest of vitality, and also a sense in which all desires and wishes are for the gratification of love. The one is the great negation, and the other the supreme affirmation of the will to live'. 'The real meaning of death is not understood until puberty, both death and love show fragmentary and generally at first automatic outcrops from early infancy on'. From some 525 replies to questionnaires it appears that the first impression of death is most often a sensation of coldness in touching a dead relative, and the reaction is a nervous start at the contrast with the warmth to which the child is accustomed from contact. Then comes immobility, and the fact of prolonged absence. The accessories of death, trivial matters in connection with the coffin, funeral, etc., are especially apt to remain prominent in the memory. It is noted how often children rejoice in the fact of death, especially in respect of advantages thereby accruing, such as the partial replacement of the dead person, father or mother. 'Even in the most highly evolved emotional lives this is only a question of preponderance, for if our analysis is not mistaken, there never was a death, even of a lover, that did not bring some joy to the survivor, swallowed up though this component be in grief.' It is a pity